Among The Sleep Devs Announce Adult Game, Mosaic

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Among The Sleep developers, Krillbite Studios, have announced they’re working on Mosaic [official site] – a game which Killscreen describes as being about “the malaise and existential surreality of being an adult”. They also quote the artist Bjørnar Frøyse saying “It’s about being a small piece in this big machinery that you don’t feel anything for.”

So I guess… the absurdity of the mundane while working a white collar job? The point here is that it sounds like they’ve very much switched their focus from the childhood scares of Among The Sleep to adult fears.

Krillbite aren’t saying much more about the experience but the Killscreen article has a couple of sentences about the introduction:

“As your day starts off like any other — passing through security, settling in front of your terminal — you’ll start to realize that something is askew about your respective role in this fluorescent-lit farm of cubicles.”

The artwork being used to illustrate the piece plus that brief description have led me to thinking about Molleindustria’s Every Day The Same Dream. The latter is only a few minutes long but deals with that exact subject really interestingly. I really love it and recommend you play if you have a few moments. No idea if Mosaic will end up being remotely similar in tone or anything but if you’re looking for white collar existential musing then it’s a good place to start.

As for Mosaic, you can sign up to the mailing list for updates via the Mosaic website if you fancy. Also, if you’re like me and Into That Sort Of Thing then the site has a nice visual effect as you scroll down.

“It’s about being a small piece in this big machinery that you don’t feel anything for.”

Jesus Christ, that’s a rung up from where I am. Do they really think most young people can still relate to this, given the gig economy we’re currently in? I work three part-time jobs (one precarious, one a temp contract, and the stable one is in a Starbucks) because I CAN’T find one full-time job in a large company. I’m a trained accountant, incidentally, so I should be in line for a nice, white-collar, soul-crushing position.

Sorry, rant over. This is sort of like revisiting American Beauty…seemed deep and meaningful at the time, but it’s values are incomprehensible ten years later.

This. As a young person who hasn’t lived this type of soul crushing before, all I think when I played Every Day The Same Dream just now is “doesn’t he talk to his coworkers? Why did they skip his free time, of which he has ample given that he has the luxury of finishing at 5?”

Though when I cycle past the legions of identical looking bankers hanging around London’s pubs every single day I think maybe I’m alright.

That’s an awfully dismissive attitude, both in general and towards depression. The lowest point in my life by far was last year when I finally got a job. I was offered a job at a small factory after ten weeks as an unpaid intern. I accepted in the hopes that economic self-sufficiency would get my life on track.

It was the biggest mistake of my life. I burned out spectacularly in ten weeks and still get daily flashbacks to the place.

Well, guys, same thing King Vidor talked about in “The Crowd” back in the 20s and he was not, by far, the first one, heh? I mean, when you stop being a teenager you should have realized by then that all of us are just extras and it’s ok.